A consultation on plans to introduce a new experience-based route for unqualified early years practitioners to count in ratios has been launched today.
The Department for Education (DfE) first outlined plans for the qualification, which aims to recognise the ‘valuable experience and skills’ of practitioners who do not hold full and relevant qualifications, at the end of May last year within its consultation on regulatory reforms to the EYFS.
It comes after the DfE published projections for the number of additional members of staff needed to deliver the full rollout of the expanded entitlement, revealing an extra 9,000 staff are needed by this September.
The new four-week long consultation outlines the proposed model for the experience-based route, eligibility criteria and requirements.
